


Traumatic Responses Experienced by Law Enforcement Officers following a Justifiable Homicide

by threewalls



Category: Hannibal (TV), Youkai Ningen Bem (TV 2011)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Crossover, Gen, Kidnapping, Movie Spoilers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This lecture series at Japan's National Police Academy is supposed to be Alana doing Hannibal a favour, but after being kidnapped (and rescued) she meets someone who needs her help more.</p><p>(Crossover / spoilers for both the first season finale of Hannibal and YNB Movie.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traumatic Responses Experienced by Law Enforcement Officers following a Justifiable Homicide

**Author's Note:**

> Written for "PTSD" for h/c bingo, and with thanks to Mec. 
> 
> As noted in the summary, this story assumes knowledge of Season 1 of Hannibal and the Youkai Ningen Bem movie.

Alana's college Japanese has lasted better than she'd expected, but it's still not good enough for this. Talking to her Japanese colleagues is easy-- their English is perfect. But at the podium earlier tonight, in front of an auditorium of Japanese police officers, she'd spoken entirely in English with a very capable female grad student translating for her. That had been hours ago, but that's not where this started.

Four weeks ago, Hannibal had mentioned that his aunt, who was herself Japanese, ran some charitable foundation out of Hiroshima and they were looking for some big name in American trauma psychology for a lecture programme they wanted to fund. He'd said that he would consider it a favour she was doing him, and Alana had considered it a godsend. An all expenses jaunt in another country to just to show up and be a famous US professor of psychology. To not be asked about her current research, about Abigail, about Will. To just lecture to Japanese policemen the same way she'd lecture at Quantico. Too tempting by half, and Alana should have probably guessed something was fishy. 

Being kidnapped tonight has changed her perspective on just who was doing who a favour. Kidnapped by exactly whom or why, Alana is still not sure. No one expects to be hit on the head walking down a corridor at Japan's National Police Academy and to wake up in some abandoned building site with two groups of people fighting over her. 

Her Japanese isn't even good enough to tell one group from the other from what they're yelling at each other. The gag in Alana's mouth is keeping her from yelling anything at all, and she's got her wrists tied behind her back-- and tied to a metal beam that is firmly anchored in concrete.

The moonlight is bright over Alana's head, but they're fighting among the shadows cast by the semi-finished upper storeys, bare concrete and protruding metal. One group seems to have guns and the other must have incredibly good body armour, because as far as she can tell, their basic strategy is rushing the gunmen and somehow it's actually working. Maybe five minutes after she'd regained consciousness, it sounds like the fight is over.

From the shadows of the building steps a man, a woman, and-- Christ-- a kid! They're all wearing clothes that look desperately like they need a wash but however bad they might smell, Alana can only smell her own panic sweat body odour. With a kid, they can't be police, but Alana's completely happy with these strange bystanders coming to her rescue.

The guy is willowy, with long silver hair under a fedora . He's the one to step carefully up to Alana, hands raised and empty. 

Holding onto the beam she was just tied to, Alana probes the back of her head. There's a bump, but she can't feel blood, not dried, not wet. Her phone's still in her pocket, and that tells her that she'd only lost several hours since she'd left that ladies room at the National Police Academy.

That's when a shot rings out from the darkness.

The woman leaps straight up in the air, like something out of the Matrix or Kill Bill. 

Silver-Hair's shoulder was thrown forward with the impact of the bullet, and Alana would have thought her Japanese is good enough to communicate "I'm a doctor", as she tries to offer her help. Turns out they have bigger problems than that.

Silver-Hair's blood is green. Green, like a Vulcan. Bright green on his pale hands. The wound is under his clothes, but Alana watches his teeth like tusks curl and shrink back into his mouth, the dark veins along the side of his face growing thin and pale.

Head injuries can cause a variety of vision effects, but not like this. Maybe she didn't hit her head at all, and all of this is just the result of too much incredibly good Japanese beer. However, Alana doesn't think she's that lucky.

Silver-Hair apologises. He calls her Bloom-sensei. 

A shout from the woman, striding back from the shadows, stops him saying more. There are no more shots fired.

The woman has more to say, but to the guy, not to Alana, and all way too quickly for Alana to follow more than a word or two. Her body language, though, the way she'd moved to stand between Alana and the boy, a restraining grip on his shoulder - that Alana could understand loud and clear. 

She's straining her mind and memory so hard to catch whatever snatches of Japanese she can that Alana doesn't automatically realise that Silver-Hair has switched to English to address her. Accented, hesitant but still English.

He tells her that he had listened to her lecture tonight. The topic had been traumatic responses experienced by law enforcement officers following a justifiable homicide. 

Was it true, Silver-Hair asks, that people often relived the moment of killing someone, even if they killed justly, to protect other people? That they found stretches of time mysteriously gone from their memory? That they saw the person they killed, again and again? 

He doesn't mention if he's killed someone. He doesn't have to.

Maybe this is really a dream. Some sort of Jungian wish-fulfilment. Meet the monster who feels remorse. Alana's not in denial about the fact that she wishes she could have helped Will more. If this is a dream, she's just glad that this guy doesn't have Will's face.

The woman interjects something, which leads to another tense exchange in Japanese, which, Alana now guesses is to deliberately keep her out. She doesn't hold it against the woman. She knows herself, and knows that she's been actively listening and responding to Silver-Hair's questions with the other half of her mind rifling through her memory to attempt to diagnose whatever skin condition all three of them are suffering from.

After a final biting comment, the woman strides away, taking the boy with her. Silver-Hair's torso turns to follow his companions, but he doesn't. 

He asks if he had heard her translator correctly, if she really thought that such experiences after having killed someone, lost memories and hallucinations, mistaking a friend's face for an enemy's, was still very _human_.

"Yes," Alana replies. "They are all absolutely human responses to trauma."

He nods, no, bows his head, and then he jumps straight up and up. 

Alana is alone.

She's alive. She's still got service on her phone. She's got GPS. She doesn't recognise where her phone's GPS app thinks she is, but it's still in Fuchu city. She also has about 20 messages from people who have been looking for her for the last few hours. 

Once she picks her way across the building site to a gate, and she's out on a road, Alana rings for a cab.


End file.
